This post was originally published on the now-defunct Wayward Wine Pixie blog on April 22, 2015

I got invited to a small dinner party. Hooray! I asked what I could bring and the host suggested a bottle of wine. Yep, I can certainly do that.

I do not decant Pinot Noir. Not ever. To me, decanting such a delicately perfumed red wine is like buying a beautiful bouquet of flowers and then smashing the blooms repeatedly on the counter before putting them into the vase for display. But he was the host, so I stayed quiet.

The other guest arrived and we finished off the honey juice. Our host poured us each a glass of the Pinot Noir from the decanter that it had been sitting in for about an hour. I sniffed it – it smelled like a faded bloom. I tried it – it tasted muted, muddled. It did not taste the way I expected a $60 bottle of wine from a very good producer should taste.

I asked the host what he thought, and he said some not very nice things about it. He said it was because it was from the 2011 vintage (admittedly a difficult year in Oregon). I did not mention it could also be from decanting. Difficult year or not, to me, a top producer should still be able to create a good wine even in a bad year. But the host had had enough of my inferior wine, and went to his cellar to pull out something ‘better’ – decanting that one too, tasting it, and then proclaiming its superiority. He reached to toss my Pinot Noir in the sink.

Maybe I’m not cut out for dinner parties, after all.